A 2,000-year-old ditch crammed with the “gruesome” massacred remains of women, babies and a teenager has been found on a hillfort built as last-gasp attempt to save war victims at Fin Cop in the heart of the Peak District.

The women and children are thought to have been slaughtered during tribal battles in about 440 BC. Experts believe the mass grave represents the first selective Iron Age attack ever found in Britain.

Only ten metres of the 400-metre trench has been excavated, with archaeologists expecting to find hundreds more skeletons in further digs on the Derbyshire site.

“For the people living at Fin Cop the hurriedly constructed fort was evidently intended as a defensive work in response to a very real threat,” said Dr Clive Waddington, the Project Director for Archaeological Research Services.

“The gruesome discoveries have reopened the debate on the purpose of hillforts. In recent years there has become an almost accepted assumption that warfare in the British Iron Age is largely invisible.”

The women and children were flung into the ditch at the bottom of the
hillfort after dying of flesh wounds. The absence of adult males
suggests men from the community may have been sold as slaves or forced
to join the opposing army.

Bones of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses were also found, showing that the fort also sheltered animals.

The hillfort consisted of a four metre-wide stone wall behind a rock-cut ditch, built as a defence against lethal weapons.